UK £2m Libya rendition payout

The Government has agreed to pay more than £2m to the family of a Libyan dissident after accepting its role in his illegal rendition. Sami al Saadi was imprisoned and tortured after he was forced to board a plane back to Tripoli in 2004.

Sapna Malik, of the human rights team representing the al Saadi family, said today:

The sheer terror experienced by the al Saadi family when they were bundled on to their rendition flight and delivered up to their nemesis clearly lives with them all to this day.

Having concluded one part of their quest for justice, they now look to the British criminal courts to hold those responsible for their ordeal to account and await the judge-led inquiry they have been promised.

Sami al Saadi, the Libyan dissident who the Government has agreed to pay over his rendition, says he still doesn't know the truth. He said:

I started this process believing that a British trial would get to the truth in my case. But today, with the Government trying to push through secret courts, I feel that to proceed is not best for my family.

I went through a secret trial once before, in Gaddafi's Libya. In many ways, it was as bad as the torture. It is not an experience I care to repeat.

Even now, the British Government has never given an answer to the simple question: 'Were you involved in the kidnap of me, my wife and my children?